THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

Happy MAY!

We have had a fun and busy month as usual. We’ve had some hot summer weather, and some cold thunderstorms. We had a power outage that lasted for 2 days, and we had a trip to Florida to visit Gigi and the rest of our FL family members. We’ve done a lot of playing outside and blowing bubbles, and visiting parks and sliding and swinging. We are looking forward to a fun summer and hope that the weather stays nice from now on…

Rosie has still been trying to assert her independence - which has been really difficult for me to deal with. She has been defiant just because she wants to be the one making the decisions. If I ask her to do something, sometimes she will cross her arms and say “No, I don’t WANT to do that!” She started saying “too bad” occasionally too - I told her she couldn’t have another snack before dinner - and she went to the pantry and said “Too bad because I already got out the craisins”. I have tried to explain to her that is not a nice or acceptable way to talk to your mom. We have had a lot of cuddle time and talking about words and attitude and I am trying to be patient and I know this is just a phase and hopefully it will pass soon. But, I have had several moments of screaming at her that I am not too proud of.

Most of the time, she is sweet and remembers to say please and thank you, and she frequently comes up to me randomly throughout the day and says “I love you mommy” and will give me a big kiss and hug - but then she will have a defiant moment out of the blue that will just take the wind out of my sails. I have been sending her to her room a lot - just telling her that I don’t appreciate her attitude and she can go to her room until she decides to be a big girl and be nice to me. She usually spends 5 min in her room and then comes down and says “I am ready to come down now” - or I will go into her room, we will talk about her behavior, I try to explain why I got angry and why she can’t act that way - we kiss and make up and then come downstairs.

One particular conversation - when she was running around naked and I wanted her to at least put underwear on and she was running away from me and screaming:
Rosie: “NO, I don’t WANT to put panties on”
Me: “You can put your panties on, or you can go to your room for a time out”
Rosie: (buries her head in her hands and cries) “I just don’t know what to choose!”

Bedtime has also been a bit of a battle, she usually requests one more book, one more cuddle, one more song, and then she needs a specific toy or doll, and if I can’t find it - she declares that she just can’t go to sleep without that thing. If I do fulfill all her requests, sometimes she just says “I don’t WANT to go to bed”. This is when I sometimes resort to yelling and threatening her. Then I always feel guilty about it - especially since she has recently started saying “I’m afraid that you’re mad at me”

Oh, but her cuteness is of such an extreme level and her sweetness the majority of the time makes the hard times so worth it. She was extra sweet around Mothers day this year and told me at least 20 times “Happy Mudder’s day”. We have taken a lot of pictures over the last couple weeks. We had a photo shoot when we lost power for a long weekend after a big storm, and she was so cute with her posing. We walked to the little playground in our neighborhood and she kept begging me “take my picture mommy”, “take a picture of me dancing”, and “take a picture of me swinging”.

We had a Mother’s Day tea at Rosie’s school on the Friday before Mother’s day, and we got dressed up in fancy dresses and had a great time eating little sandwiches and treats and drinking tea with lots of milk and a little sugar. I found a small teapot set at Salvation Army for Rosie later that week and we have been having our own tea parties at home while Sammy naps.

She is so cute with all her playing and ideas and things she says and knows. She sings me songs she learns at school, in her quiet, breathy, slightly off-key voice. She surprised me by knowing the days of the week (I guess she learned at school) and she has been talking a lot about using her ‘magination. She has a wooden giraffe pull toy that she recently named “princess” and she told me the other day “princess would like some more craisins please mommy”. I said, “oh, really - princess wants the craisins?” and she said “oh yeah, princess just LOVES craisins”.

She saw the neighbor’s lawn getting mowed the other day and she asked me:
“mommy, what’s that guy doing”
“he’s mowing the lawn”
“oh, he’s getting the grass all smalled up?”

Sammy is still an active 22 month old. He is seemingly in constant motion - jumping, running, climbing, etc. Every time he goes outside, he makes a bee-line for one of the neighbor’s playstructures. He could spend hours climbing up, sliding down and running around until I usually have to chase him down (giggling) and bring him inside. He is pretty coordinated and sports minded for a not-yet-two-year-old. He can run and kick a soccer ball with pretty good precision. He will see a basketball, and pick it up and carry it over to the neighbor’s basketball hoop and jump and try to throw it up towards the hoop towering over him. He is pretty good at throwing and even catching balls now when we play catch.

He is even looking more like a big boy lately. I just trimmed his hair a little bit, and he doesn’t have that babyish look about him anymore. He is still getting new words every day, and is talking more in 2 and 3 word sentences. Every night when I put him to bed I say “night night, love you” and he always repeats back to me “ni- nite” and waves with his hand, and he has started to say “love-oo” occasionally too. There are still things I don’t understand that he says, and I have to usually say “show me” and he will ask for my “hand” and take my hand and pull me over to whatever it is that he is requesting or talking about.

He usually asks to hold my “hand” and wants to “walk” when we go places. He will chant “ME ME ME” or “TOO TOO TOO” when he wants something. He has been trying to put shoes and socks on himself, and he will bring my shoes to me and say “shoe on” and try to put my shoes on me as well. He has been taking his diaper off occasionally, so I need to make sure I keep pants or shorts on him so he doesn’t have access to the velcro closures on his diapers. He is getting really good at eating with utensils and drinking from regular cups. He is starting to say “Peeese” and ” tayk too” pretty regularly.

He is constantly copying his sister and wanting to do whatever she says or does. Recently, she was dancing for me and holding her dress out and twirling and jumping and spinning around, and Sammy got up and pulled up the bottom of his t-shirt and was spinning around and saying “too, too, too”. He still is jealous and thinks he owns my body. Anytime Rosie sits on my lap or cuddles me he comes over and whines and tries to push her away. We went back to nursing a ton because the kids were both a little sick at the beginning of the month, and then when we traveled, our schedules were all out of whack, so now we are trying to get back on track..

We had a fun trip to Florida at the beginning of the month, and got to rest and relax and go to the beach and spend some time with family (Gigi, Auntie Em, cousin Ella, Aunt Jackie, Aunt Rochelle, and cousins Stephen and Bailey.) The last day we were there, a little parking lot carnival opened up right near Gigi’s house and Rosie and Ella got to go on a bunch of rides together and it was so fun.

Have a great month! Here’s a little video of the kids blowing bubbles outside on a nice (but windy) day…